LANDFIRE 2012 (LF 2012 - LF_1.3.0)

LANDFIRE (LF) 2012 was an update to LF2010 to more accurately represent current conditions and account for landscape disturbances that occurred in CY 2011 and 2012. Disturbances include: treatment activities such as wildland fire, fuel and vegetation treatments, mortality from insects and disease, storm damage, invasive plants, and other natural or anthropogenic events.

Several enhancements were made to the existing vegetation type layer in LF 2012:

responses to vegetation successional change in forested types

revisions to address discrepancies between map products and known field conditions

specific systematic improvements

The LF 2012 update strategy used a consistent approach to combine geospatial data depicting areas of disturbance with Remote Sensing of Landscape Change (RSLC) products to develop the disturbance layers. Data from national fire mapping programs, including Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS), Burned Area Reflectance Classification (BARC), and Rapid Assessment of Vegetation Condition after Wildfire (RAVG) produced by the USGS and USFS were used to locate and characterize large wildfires.